


Rebecca Bunch's Four-mative Musicals

by volunteerfd



Category: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2018-11-12
Packaged: 2019-08-22 09:58:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16595693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/volunteerfd/pseuds/volunteerfd
Summary: Four musicals Rebecca saw in her early years.





	Rebecca Bunch's Four-mative Musicals

  1. _Chicago - 1996_



1996 was a big year for Rebecca Nora Bunch. She had just turned six and was  _ killing  _ first grade. She was already reading at a third-and-a-half grade level, zooming through her homework. Every adult called her “precocious.” It was by far the number one word used to describe her. Precocious meant mature. Adult. Grown enough to sit through a Broadway show.  After raves from Parent-Teacher Night, even Naomi couldn’t deny it.

Naomi would never forgive Rebecca for being ages zero to five. Twenty years in the future, Naomi would still remind her how difficult it had been to find a babysitter for all the parts of  _ Angels in America.  _ How she almost had to miss Part One of  _ Perestroika  _ because Naomi would  _ not  _ be one of those mothers who brought a screaming brat to a Broadway show. But Rebecca wasn’t a screaming brat anymore. She was six, she was a straight-A student, she could put on her own prettiest dress, and she could sit quietly on the LIRR with the latest  _ Magic Tree House  _ book.

“Come on, Rebecca,” Naomi hissed, grabbing Rebecca’s wrist and dragging her up the stairs from the ugly train station (the lurrr). The three-level journey up to the city surface was grimy, musty, and kind of scary. But all that would change once she saw a Broadway show. Rebecca wanted to take it all in: the city was grey now, but when she emerged from the theater, it would shine. She wanted to walk down each of the streets, remembering every detail, marking them into her mind for Before and After photos.

Naomi hauled them into a cab. 

By the time she got home, she’d forgotten most of the day. The tall buildings loomed in her mind like the vague background of a cartoon--they could have just as easily been the City of Townsville as New York. Even the show was a hazy mishmash of half-remembered details.

Lawyers were pretty much the coolest people ever--after sexy murderesses, but Rebecca couldn’t see any reason why someone couldn’t be both.

The one thing she could remember in vivid detail was a scrap of a song, which she repeated on loop in her bedroom for weeks to come, toneless, twirling in front of her mirror.

“He had it coming, he had it coming, he only had himself to blame. If you had been there, if you had seen it, I bet you you would have done the same.”

  1. _CATS_ \- 1998



“Please, Mom!  _ Everyone  _ has seen CATS. It’s all they can talk about. I’m the only one who hasn’t.”

“I’m not schlepping you into the city to watch that garbage.”

“The only other girl who hasn’t seen it is Monica Hauser and she gets subsidized lunch.”

It was low. Even at nine, Rebecca knew it was ignoble to use someone else’s class status to spur her mom. But it  _ worked.  _  She got to see CATS.

Maybe she should have listened to her mother. Maybe she should have waited to sacrifice her moral fortitude for the sake of a musical--there would be other opportunities in the future. But what was done was done.

And maybe Rebecca  _did_ enjoy it. She'd never know, not with how Naomi mumbled and grumbled the entire trip back, bringing it up whenever Rebecca slacked on her homework or wanted to go to the mall. CATS, Naomi would say, she'd sat through that show for her daughter, what more did she want? Was it worth it?

Rebecca had no choice but to say no.

 

  1. _Parade_ \- 1999



“Sit down,” Naomi hissed, “and shut up. This is important. You need to learn.”

It wasn’t the first Broadway show Rebecca saw, but it’s the first one she remembers into adulthood as her First Broadway Show. She smoothed down her skirt as the lights went down, folded her hands primly in her lap. The opening chord sounded like a school bell. The syllabus included such lessons as:

  1. Jews are in danger at all times _everywhere._ But she knew that already.
  2. The South is bad. The Deep South is _awful._ Never, ever go there or you will _die._ But she knew that already, too.
  3. Wives who keep house and cook for their husband should also be able to raise hell when they need to rescue their idiot husbands from persecution.



In the cab back to the lurr, Naomi asked Rebecca what she learned. Rebecca told her. Naomi nodded and said nothing.

  1. _The Phantom of the Opera -_ 2000



It wasn't weird for a 10-year old girl to identify with The Phantom. It wasn't. Not everyone could be a petite soprano. Anyway, Christine Daae was a cipher, a big bland lump of clay that 10-year old girls were supposed to project onto. 

She brought this up to her classmates--that she identified with the Phantom, not the rest of it about Christine being dull and boring.

Aline was quick to correct her. “No, you don’t want to  _ be  _ the ugly one. You want the ugly one to kiss you.”

Rebecca nodded. “Oh, yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. I get it. Um, just wondering, why?”

“Because you know you’re  _ better  _ than him. Even if it seems like he has all the power, really  _ you  _ have all the power.”

“Why can’t everyone be equal?” Bethany asked.

“Shut  _ up, _ Bethany,” Aline said.

“But Christine doesn’t really have power,” Rebecca pointed out.

“Yes, she does. She has two guys into her. That’s power.”

“And she’s nice,” Bethany said. “That was her power.”

Rebecca nodded. They made compelling arguments. Identifying with Christine seemed to be the right thing to do, and a good thing, and the normal thing, and she would try.


End file.
